Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Day Two - All About the Eyes

Today was a mommy anxiety day. We once again woke up early to get everyone dressed and fed with a good breakfast before we hit the road to get to our appointment at 9:00am. I had a snack and lunch fixed for Rookie anticipating his longer day. Upon arrival we were greeted and told that we would be dropping him off and returning at the end of the day. We knew this was a possibility, so I put together his food (a PB&J sandwich, some cheese, an apple, and whole grain crackers, water bottle),we gave him a hug and kiss, then we headed back to the car. We said a prayer for his time there and we left to head back to the hotel for a few hours. About halfway to the hotel, the "mommy anxiety" kicked in....I just left my son for four hours with someone we just met yesterday! Of course I did remind myself at this point that she was a referred source and Robby was sure to calm my fabricated fears. Our plan was to return at 1:00p to pick him up. He would work with her better on his own than being able to fall back on us. Plus, he had already been working with her for one day, so she was now a "friend" to him.

EVALUATION RESULTS
We returned at 1:00p and received a frown and turned back as our welcome. He was not the happiest that we had left him all day, but that didn't last too long and was quickly telling us about his one tantrum of the day (which was solved by some food in the stomach). In talking to his practitioner, she assured us that he did great, but was very tired. Her main focus of the day was his eyes and working with the eyes can really wear you out. His tracking was poor and practically non-existent. By the end of the day it had greatly improved.
Tomorrow, her plan is to finish! She will be finishing up her work with his eyes, focusing on his speech, and touching on a few advanced elements to help him with his reading skills. We will drop him off for a couple of hours and return to have lunch with him. Then I will hang out with them the remaining time while she implements some advanced activities that I can continue to use with him to help his learning especially when it comes to spelling and reading. Again, a lot of the information she relayed to us is hard to explain fully without having it in front of me.

OUR THOUGHTS
After we picked Rookie up, we made a trip to Zilker Park and hung out at the playground AND rode their train (definitely a highlight for Rookie). Ladybug crashed on our way to pick Rookie up from his therapy and Ace crashed in the car after the park, but one interesting thing we noticed today was that Rookie did not nap...at all! Not even a short snooze in the car. As tired as he was from the day, he never fell asleep. There is rarely a day that Rookie doesn't fall asleep or show that he NEEDS a nap. I'm not sure if this is as a result of his therapy, but it was definitely something to note. Otherwise, we don't really have anything else to report. It is going to take some time to see the full affects of this therapy. We just continue to pray and put it in God's hands.